Bernard Schoenburg: Race for Menard County judge drawing interest

Sunday

Feb 16, 2014 at 1:09 AM

By Bernard SchoenburgPolitical Writer

One of the candidates who is seeking to be the next resident circuit judge in Menard County says a 2007 arrest for carrying open alcohol while he was a passenger in a pickup truck was a “stupid mistake.”

“And I learned from it,” said GABE GROSBOLL. “I haven’t done it again.”

A Petersburg Police Department report on the traffic stop about 12:30 a.m. May 27, 2007, detailed how the truck made a couple of turns without signaling. After the stop, the officer found there were four people in the vehicle and some open beer bottles and cans.

As Grosboll showed his driver’s license, the officer saw a badge in his wallet, the report says. Grosboll told him he was an assistant state’s attorney in Sangamon County at the time.

Grosboll and another passenger got tickets for illegal transportation of alcohol by a passenger, while the driver got a warning but not a ticket “since he was performing designated driving duties for the others,” the police report says.

Grosboll, now 39, said he had been at a Saturday event at a golf course in Petersburg, the designated driver was ready to go, and “I took an open container with me. Several of us got in the vehicle. I was in the back seat.” He said he later pleaded guilty and paid a fine.

At the time, Grosboll said, he was assigned to handle felony cases for then-Sangamon County State’s Attorney JOHN SCHMIDT, who is now a judge. One of Grosboll’s earlier assignments had been to handle drunken driving cases.

“I told him the situation,” Grosboll said of Schmidt. “He verbally reprimanded me, but there was no suspension or anything like that.”

KEN BAUMGARTEN was then Menard County state’s attorney. He died suddenly in December, from a blood clot in a lung, at age 55. Just days earlier, he was among three candidates, along with Grosboll and MIKE ATTERBERRY, who had filed for the Republican nomination for the judicial post left vacant with the move of Judge CAROL POPE to the 4th District Appellate Court.

In late January, Baumgarten’s widow, the former SUSAN FINZEN, who in the past was a news anchor at WICS-TV, and their two children had their signatures on a “Dear Friends and Neighbors” letter, published as an ad in The Petersburg Observer, endorsing Atterberry.

“Ken knew how important it is to have a judge with experience and a judge with integrity,” the letter states. She also said that, “on more than one occasion he told me that if he couldn’t be” the next judge, “for the sake of justice in Menard County, he hoped Mike would be.”

“I found her letter to be very gratifying, and particularly meaningful, given the fact that her husband and Ken and I had been opponents 10 years earlier in a race for state’s attorney,” Atterberry said.

“Certainly, if that’s the way she feels, I respect her opinion,” Grosboll said. “I do wish she had also talked to me before she made any sort of endorsement. I don’t hold any ill will towards them.”

Atterberry, 55, was Menard County state’s attorney from 1991 until 1998. He left mid-term to join a Springfield law firm and later joined the state as an assistant attorney general, where he specializes in helping local authorities with complicated cases. Grosboll is an administrative law judge for the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Atterberry, meanwhile, is renting his Petersburg home and has a vacant home in Chatham that has been for sale for more than a year. Atterberry said the move to Chatham in the summer of 2010 was necessary for the family because the sales territory of his wife, a pharmaceutical company representative, had changed, and it was best for her to live in the territory. Their eldest child graduated from Glenwood High and is now in college. Their two younger children are students at Petersburg PORTA High School. They rented the Petersburg house two years ago, he said, and moved back. His wife’s territory changed again. And he said they are renting as they try to sell the Chatham house “because we just simply can’t afford to have two mortgages.”

Grosboll said he has “been in Menard County whenever I could, whenever I wasn’t required to live somewhere else.” He lived in Sangamon County from 2003-2008 because it was a requirement of his job in the state’s attorney’s office there, he said. He and his wife moved back to Menard County in 2009, he said.

No Democrat has filed for the resident judge vacancy.

Edgar joins map effort

Springfield resident and former GOP Gov. JIM EDGAR has signed onto the “Yes for Independent Maps” group’s petition drive that intends to let voters decide in the fall if they want redistricting each 10 years to be handled by an 11-member appointed commission instead of the General Assembly.

In a message on the group’s letterhead, Edgar says the process of drawing legislative districts was “broken even then” during his time as governor, from 1991-1999, “but partisanship has now reached an extreme.

“It harms communities across the state and creates a system where we, the people of Illinois, are no longer choosing our representatives,” he said, adding that the proposed changes would “create a transparent, independent process that we can all have faith in.” He also noted that the effort is bipartisan.

In order to get the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot, at least 298,400 signatures need to be filed with the State Board of Elections by May 5.

Honor for Mills

BRAD MILLS, an elected member of the Prairie Capital Convention Center’s board since 2007, was honored at the Sangamon County GOP’s Lincoln Day Dinner last week with the LOWELL FRAIM award for loyalty and dedication to the party.

The award’s namesake was the first recipient of the award in 2008, and Fraim was among the more than 1,100 people at last week’s dinner at the PCCC, where famed surgeon and conservative commentator Dr. BEN CARSON was keynote speaker.

Mills is not only a precinct committeeman, district chairman and member of the party’s executive committee, but has chaired golf outings and other events for the party, and helps out at headquarters and at committeemen’s meetings. He has, said party chair ROSEMARIE LONG in announcing the award, “always been there for us.”

“I’m a proud member of the Grand Old Party, and it’s a great day to be a Republican,” said Mills, 54, who is retired from the secretary of state’s office.

He’s vice chairman of the city of Springfield’s Planning and Zoning Commission, and chairs the Springfield-Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission. He is also a member of Frontiers International, Springfield chapter; is on the African-American advisory council to U.S. Sen. MARK KIRK, R-Ill.; and last month was named Sangamon County coordinator of the gubernatorial campaign of state Treasurer DAN RUTHERFORD.

Other recipients of the Fraim award have been JIM EDWARDS, JERRY WHITE, ABE FORSYTH, KENT GRAY and DIANNE BARGHOUTI HARDWICK.

Bernard Schoenburg is political columnist for The State Journal-Register. He can be reached at 788-1540 or follow him via twitter.com/bschoenburg. His email address is bernard.schoenburg@sj-r.com.

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